The northernmost population of the scorpionfly Brachypanorpa jeffersoni Byers (Mecoptera: Panorpodidae)

3 Pages·2000·1.2 MB·English

by  Richard L Hoffman

Banisteria, Number 16, 2000
© 2000 by the Virginia Natural History Society
The Northernmost Population of the Scorpionfly
Brachypanorpa jeffersoni Byers
(Mecoptera: Panorpodidae)
Richard L. Hoffman
Virginia Museum of Natural History
Martinsville, Virginia 24112
Brachypanorpa is one of the insect genera description of B. jeffersoni. This new form, named for
represented by closely related species in the southern the third president of the United States, was found to be
Appalachians and the Pacific Northwest, obviously allopatric with B. carolinensis, with localities in Ashe
surviving fragments of a former transcontinental Co., North Carolina, Johnson Co., Tennessee, and
distribution. The genus was erected by F. M. Carpenter Grayson Co., Virginia. Byers (1976) commented that
(1931) for the Appalachian endemic first named Brachypanorpa “...has not been found in the Great
Panorpodes carolinensis by Banks in 1905 and P. Smoky Mountains or on other major Appalachian ridges
oregonensis McLachlan. At the time - 26 years after west of the Blue Ridge.”
Banks’ (1905) description - B. carolinensis was still The range of the genus, and B. jeffersoni in
known only from the Black Mountains, North Carolina, particular, can now be extended no less than 65 mi/104
and a single collection from Linville Falls, on the Blue km further to the northeast, at least tripling the area
Ridge escarpment some 22 mi/35 km northeast of the known to date (Fig. 1). On 6 June 1993, Carl Hoffman
Black Mountains. and I collected a number of scorpionflies in a moist,
Carpenter (1953) treated the species again, giving shady site on Sugar Run Mountain, 8.6 mi/14 km SW of
new records which extended the known range south into Narrows, Giles County, Virginia; four of them (2
northern Georgia and northwest to Roan Mountain on VMNH, 2 USNM) proved to be males of B. jeffersoni.
the North Carolina-Tennessee border. In the same year, On large-scale maps, the site is identified as Big Horse
a specimen of Brachypanorpa was collected on Mount Gap, at the intersection of Forest Service road P612 and
Rogers by E. C. Turner of the VPISU Entomology the access road to Sugar Run lookout tower. The
Department, and one year later, I obtained another at the elevation is approximately 3890 ft (1185 m) ASL.
same locality, but at a somewhat higher elevation in the Insects were collected primarily by sweeping low herbs
spruce-fir forest. This latter specimen was identified by and ferns, notably large stands of Osmunda cinnamonea
Sophy Parfin (USNM) and reported by her (1955) as B. in a seepage area.
carolinensis, with some differences from more southern This northernmost locality for B. jeffersoni is also the
material being noted. This record extended the known first for the Ridge and Valley physiographic province and
range nearly 45 mi/72 km north of Linville Falls, and presages discovery of the species elsewhere along the
added Virginia to the list of states of record. Clinch-Walker mountain complexes. Specific searches
There the situation rested for another decade, until that I have made to date at Burkes Garden, Tazewell Co.,
George W. Byers commenced his long tenure as summer have been unsuccessful, but perhaps the time or biotope
instructor at the Mountain Lake Biological Station, and was not optimal. Byers (1976) found B. jeffersoni to be
initiated an ongoing study of the Mecoptera of very abundant at several stations along the forest service
southwestern Virginia. During the summers of 1967-69, road up Whitetop Mountain in June of three successive
Professor Byers investigated the northern populations years, but determined efforts by VMNH staff to duplicate
of B. carolinensis and became convinced they were his success have been fruitless, despite attention to the
specifically distinct from nominate B. carolinensis, habitats (and probably some of the same sites) detailed in
sensu Banks, reporting his findings in 1976 with the his paper. Perhaps population densities fluctuate in this
HOFFMAN: SCORPIONFLY RANGE EXTENSION 47
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Fig. 1. Known collection sites for Brachypanorpa jeffersoni. The northwestern edge of the Blue Ridge physiographic
province is shown by dashed lines, the eastern edge of the folded Appalachians by the dotted line. The location of
Mountain Lake is indicated by the "X". The course of the New River across Virginia is also shown.
species. if it did occur on Salt Pond Mountain.
Superficially, males of B. jeffersoni appear to be a In some of the most spectacular terrain in the central
small Panorpa without wing markings (females have Appalachians, the two great massifs of Salt Pond and
only rudimentary wing pads), but a closer inspection Flat Top mountains, once a continuous megaridge, now
shows that the head is not prolonged into the long confront each other at six miles across the valley of the
“beak” of typical panorpids (Figs. 2, 3). New River in central Giles County, over which they
The somewhat dogmatic assertion embodied in the tower by 2300 ft (700 m). The currently known
title of this paper is made with considerable assurance. distribution of B. jeffersoni in Virginia finds close
Professor Byers’ prolonged inventory of Mecoptera and parallels in the salamander Plethodon jordani metcalfi
Tipulidae at the Mountain Lake Biological Station has Dunn, and the millipeds Rudiloria kleinpeteri (Hoffinan)
made that site one of the most intensively collected in and Brachycybe lecontii Wood, cumulatively attesting to
North America for scorpionflies, and it seems utterly the efficacy of this valley as a significant biogeographic
improbable that B. jeffersoni would have been overlooked constraint for southern Appalachian endemics.
48 BANISTERIA NO. 16, 2000
Fig. 2. Brachypanorpa jeffersoni Byers. Left Fig. 3. Brachypanorpa jeffersoni Byers. Head of
lateral view of male paratype (from Byers, 1976). male from Flat Top Mountain, Virginia; lateral
view to show general shape (not prolonged
ventrad) and location of the genal projection
typical of the genus (arrow).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Byers, G. W. 1976. A new Appalachian Brachypanorpa
Professor George W. Byers has been so kind as to (Mecoptera: Panorpodidae). Journal of the Kansas
verify my tentative identification of the Giles County Entomological Society 49: 433-440.
specimens as B. jeffersoni, to review a draft of this
document, and to allow me to include his original Carpenter, F. M. 1931. Revision of the Nearctic
drawing of this species. Mecoptera. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology 72: 205-277.
LITERATURE CITED Carpenter, F. M. 1953. Biology of Brachypanorpa
(Mecoptera). Psyche 60: 28-36.
Banks, N. 1905. Description of new species of
neuropterous insects from the Black Mountains, N. C. Parfin, S. 1956. Additional records for Brachypanorpa
Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History carolinensis (Banks). Proceedings of the Entomological
21:215-218. Society of Washington 57: 204-205.